1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to communication networks that provide network services, such as digital subscriber line (DSL) services.
2. Background
Digital Subscriber Line services, such as Internet access, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Video-on-Demand (VoD), etc. are provided by service providers utilizing a DSL network. A DSL network typically includes a large number of switches, such as Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers DSLAMs), each such switch having multiple ports. Each port provides a dedicated connection to separate customer interface equipment. A typical switch includes multiple ports often 100-2000 ports. A DSL network typically provides DSL services to several million customers spread over different regions, thus utilizing several thousand switches. Often, the DSL network is divided into sub-networks or regional networks, each such regional network being within a firewall. Typically, several data management servers, referred to as EMS servers, are placed in each regional network to retrieve data (such as inventory data, performance data, etc.) data from the switches in their corresponding regions in response to queries from one or more data collection servers.
The EMS servers typically limit the number of concurrent data query sessions (“sessions”) for data collection purposes. Thus, for example, if the number of concurrent sessions is limited to ten and there are 500 switches associated with an EMS server, then each session would process 50 switches sequentially when the servers operate in a synchronous mode. Data collection from each switch can take several minutes to a few hours. Thus, such a data collection method can take a substantial amount of time. The problem can be mitigated by adding additional EMS servers, which can be costly and add to the additional burden of managing additional equipment. Thus, there is a need for an efficient bulk data collection system and method.